


Peralta, P.I.

by oddishly



Series: Peralta, P.I. [1]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-18
Updated: 2016-01-18
Packaged: 2018-05-14 20:09:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5756596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oddishly/pseuds/oddishly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The name's Peralta. Jake Peralta. Private Investigator.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Peralta, P.I.

**Author's Note:**

> glovered is a godly type who prompts, betas, and delights better than any of them! THANKS GLOVERED <3

Downtown San Diego, unseasonably cool, the sky is darkening with the hour and the rain.

Jake rubs his eyes. He’s spent all day--all week--searching for witnesses he’s missed, details overlooked, and he’s exhausted. He’s been subsisting on ham sandwiches, has taken to sleeping under his desk, and he can’t remember if he cancelled Star Wars with Boyle or if he’s going to be relying on the latest love of Boyle’s life to take his seat.

Gina leans against the doorframe. “Whattup, kiddo?”

“The Jackson murders,” Jake says. His throat is sore from too many orange juices that morning. “The basketball coach skipped town last week and he was my last lead.” He drops his forehead into his arms. “Christ, I’m sick of not getting paid.” He opens his eyes to his mahogany desk, trying not to think about all the clients it was supposed to impress.

Gina tuts and comes further inside and pets his head. “Told you you should have let me seduce him. Then he’d still be tied up. He was hot, I could get into bondage for hot.”

“Yeah,” says Jake. He thinks gloomily about the good that might have done. “Anyone get in touch about the--” he nods at the desk on the other side of the office, empty but for three boxes of case notes that Gina is apparently never going to file, then drops his head back into his arms. “Space for rent?”

“Yep, she’s here right now,” says Gina, so nonchalantly that Jake almost misses it. He jolts uprights and she continues. “She’s in the waiting...area. You know, Jake, we keep getting hot people in, you’re going to have to redecorate in there.” She wheels on the spot. “Now that you look better, I’m going to flirt with her more.”

“Why didn’t you--never mind, bring her in. Wait--Gina! What’s her name?”

“Dunno,” calls Gina as the door swings shut behind her, “I only told her mine.”

Jake gapes at the door. “That’s not what I pay you for!” he yells, belatedly remembering to keep it professional.

The woman Gina leads into his office is _hot_. And terrifying. Lots of leather. Her jaw is set, and Jake’s pretty sure his back can’t physically go as straight as she’s holding herself.

She doesn’t do the usual gawp around the deceptively enormous office, but strides forward with her hand outstretched. “Rosa Diaz.”

“Rosa Diaz! Hi. Hi, there. Jake Peralta, P.I., of Peralta, P.I.” Jake does a weird little shrug-laugh that on consideration, never needs to happen again. He grabs Rosa’s hand and shakes it vigorously.

Gina steps forward. “And Gina Linetti, assistant P.I.”

“Assistant _to_ the P.I.,” corrects Jake. “How are you, Rosa?”

“Diaz,” says hot Rosa Diaz shortly. She eyes the office, the complete absence of furniture and the piles of case files and spare cell phones lining the walls, the enormous windows overlooking the trolley, and the lifesize poster of Jake’s silhouette on a street corner, _yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker_ superimposed along the top, adorning the wall behind her desk-to-be.

“You like Die Hard?” she asks, apparently rhetorically, because who doesn’t like _Die Hard_?

“He’s a big fan,” says Gina. “You like movies? What a coincidence, I was just going to ask you to one.”

Jake glares at her until she slides off the desk that Diaz is hopefully going to give him $800 a month to rent.

Gina lands with her heels (did she _change_ her _shoes_?) three inches to the left of Diaz’s boots. “Or we could skip the movie and go straight to mine,” she purrs, which is exactly the kind of blatant that Jake has failed at many, many times in his life and is actually quite impressive to watch when it’s not coming from him.

Diaz seems to agree. She looks Gina up and down without saying anything, but her mouth is quirked. “What’s the case?” she says at last, and slowly returns her gaze to Jake.

“You’re a detective?” And Jake holds his hand down so he can’t smack himself in the face when she gives him an unimpressed look.

“A private detective,” says Diaz. She thrusts a skinny brown envelope into Jake’s hands. “Here’s my references. I haven’t hurt anyone this year so you can ignore everything after the first page of all of them. I like this place and if you don’t want a partner you’re stupid, no one works better alone. Though if you were expecting a--” she gestures-- “an accountant or something to rent it, then uh, I’ll go.”

“No, I--”

“Cool. I’ll work the first case free. Then if you don’t like how I work you can fire me.”

Jake considers. This wasn’t he’d been advertising, he’d expected a--well, an accountant or something. But-- “I’m looking for a partner,” he says, deciding to know a good thing when Gina drapes herself all over it. “We split our takings between the three of us, including the first case. And we can talk about switching desks if you want.”

He’s already resigned himself to the shitty desk that doesn’t have a corner when Diaz dumps her purse and her gun on top of it. “What are you working on?” she asks, steadfastly ignoring Gina running her tongue over her teeth.

Jake shakes it off. “Murder in a high school,” he says. “Exhausted all my leads and no money left to follow my last witness out of town. You in?”

“What’ve you got?” asks Diaz instead of answering, striding into the last of the sunlight to look over Jake’s files.

Jake looks over her shoulder to grin at Gina before setting the scene. “Okay,” he says. “I’m a Brooklyn cop, fulfilling his boyhood dream to become someone his father couldn’t let down. A cigar-smoking, whiskey-swigging man of the people turning steadily more cynical as the bad guys go free. This is my last case before I’m kicked off the force for caring too much and not enough. You’re Rosa Diaz--”

“Private Investigator,” says Diaz.

“Private Investigator,” Jake agrees without missing a beat. 

“And Gina Linetti,” says Gina again. “The other hot one.” She throws her hair back over her shoulder and winks at Diaz.

Diaz grabs a bundle of photos and makes herself comfortable in Jake’s chair, long black boots propped up on his desk. Her mouth quirks up into what Jake would almost call a smile, on someone less terrifying, and says, “Let’s do this.”


End file.
